Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are complex legal arrangements designed to share the control
and the risks and rewards of a set of fixed assets between a private enterprise and a public unit,
normally a unit of the general government sector. In most PPPs, the assets are legally owned and
used by the private enterprise to produce a specified category of services for several years, and then
the government gains operational control and legal ownership of the assets, often without payment.
The 1993 SNA treatment of operating and financial leases are not sufficient to derive an appropriate
accounting treatment for PPPs and there are no other guidelines given about PPPs There are two
major issues to be resolved. The first is to decide whether the private enterprise or the government
is the economic owner of the fixed assets. The second is to decide the appropriate recording for
transactions between the private enterprise and the public unit during the period covered by the PPP
arrangement.

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